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POLITICO 44

Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that the contested election in Afghanistan is the key factor that’s made President Barack Obama increasingly reluctant to commit to new troops to Afghanistan and said Obama will make a decision in “a matter of a few weeks.”

Appearing on ABC's “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Gates also predicted that it would be “one to three years” before Iran is able to go nuclear, and hedged on another deadline, saying “it’s going to be tough” to meet Obama’s January deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

For most of the interview, though, Gates parried tough questions from Stephanopoulos, who questioned why Obama, who laid out what he called a “new and comprehensive" Afghanistan strategy in March, was now saying he needed to settle on a strategy before responding to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops. McChrystal hand-delivered the troops request to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Admiral Mike Mullen on Saturday, though Gates said that he’s yet to show the document to the commander-in-chief.

“The key is whether the Afghans believe that their government has legitimacy,” Gates said, according to an advance transcript of the interview. “And everything that I've seen in the intelligence and elsewhere indicates that remains the case.”

Asked about how long the president would take to reach a decision, Gates said, “Well, I — you know, I — it's not going to take — I think it — it's a matter of a few weeks. And people should remember that the debate within the Bush administration on the [Iraq] surge lasted three months, from October to December, 2006.”

Gates’ remarks, taped on Friday, seemed to contradict those of Obama’s National Security Adviser, retired general Jim Jones, in Sunday’s Washington Post, where he told Bob Woodward that “I don’t have a deadline in mind.”

Gates did not say whether he believes a troop surge in Afghanistan is warranted.

“I think we know it when we see it,” Gates said. when asked to define victory in Afghanistan, “and we see it in Iraq. I think that success in Afghanistan looks a great deal like success in Iraq, in this respect, that the Afghan national security forces increasingly take the lead in protecting their own territory and going after the insurgents and protecting their own people.

“We withdraw to an overwatch situation and then we withdraw altogether.”

In a separate appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gates endorsed General McChrystal as “the very best commanding officer we could possibly have there,” and called “the notion of timelines and exit strategies… a strategic mistake,” twice warning that “failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States.”

Drawing a comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates suggested the same strategic imperatives applied:

“Well, first of all, I'd like to remember — remind people that — that the debate within the Bush administration over the surge took about three months, from October to December 2006… We had the same kind of dialogue with General Odierno about the timing of pulling our combat units out of — out of Iraq and … it has proved to work very well.”

Asked by “State of the Union” host John King, “Is Afghanistan a quagmire?”, Gates said “I don't think so, and I think that, with a general like McChrystal, it won't become one.”

On Guantanamo, Gates said on ABC that he’d been a supporter of establishing a deadline for closing the prison since the transition, “because I know enough from being around this town that if you don't put a deadline on something, you'll never move the bureaucracy.”

But responding to reports this week that the administration is conceding it’s unlikely to meet the January deadline Obama set, Gates also downplayed the deadline’s importance:

"But I also said … if we find we can't get it done by that time but we have a good plan, then you're in a position to say it's going to take us a little longer but we are moving in the direction of implementing the policy that the president set.”

TIME IS A PRECIOUS RESOURCE WHEN YOU ARE IN COMBAT! HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE OBAMA TO MAKE A DECISION? HOW MANY APPEARANCES ON LENO, LETTERMAN (EVEN THE VIEW), BEFORE HE COMES TO GRIPS WITH THE FACT THAT HE IS NOW THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF --- NOT BUSH??

This decision will be a true test of Obama's leadership. It will be a far reaching decision, regardless of the direction.

* If he decides not to honor the troop increase, why should our troops remain and be killed slowly but surely by the Taliban? If we are not there to WIN, then the troops should be withdrawn. They should not be victims of indecision.

*If he decides to increase the troop level, he should plan for involvement for the long haul. A culture based on opium trade, warlords, and radical Islam is not changed over a decade -- but requires generations. Look how long we have been in the Balkans; Korea; for Pete’s sake – Germany and Japan!

*If he decides to pull out (as the far left would propose), he will cede Afghanistan (AND BY EXTENSION, PAKISTAN) to radical Islam. Two major problems: what will happen to the nukes in Pakistan, and what fuse will be ignited between India and Pakistan (both nuclear powers) when the US pulls out? The whole idea was to engage radical Islam on their turf -- not a repeat of the Twin Towers.

NOW, LET US SEE WHAT LEADER EMERGES!!

* An appeaser, placing the US at risk?

* A far thinking risk taker with the goal of winning?

This is going to tell us if Obama is up to the task of protecting the USA!!

If he makes the wrong decision, and this Country is attacked again, Obama will not be in a position to blame Bush using convoluted Obama Team logic!

The media, mouthing the administration, says 'strategy' first - 'strategy before resources' - but, if Obama’s thinking is accurately reflected in the current 'bumper sticker', we are in deep Bush-like troubles. Every American knows from bitter experience with a deranged administration that an effective 'strategy' is preceded by understanding the mission, goals and objectives. If Obama is not reflecting on the mission, goals and objectives, he is clearly doing it wrong (see George Bush et al for likely consequences). The American people (not the Republicans, neo-cons and babble-heads, but the American people) know that defeating al-Qaeda – i.e. the mission - is not achievable by attacking and occupying a single nation, then another nation, then another nation. Al-Qaeda simply moves from one country to another continuing its work and leaving its pursuers to face the ill-will and animosity of an occupied people. Let us hope Obama is looking not at the bumper sticker, but the reality and reconsidering the war in Afghanistan in light of the mission, rather than the strategy.

The surge in Iraq was quite different from the proposed surge in Afghanistan. The insurgents in Iraq were Sunnis whom we then paid to fight al Qaeda rather than to fight us, with promises (yet to be kept) that they would join the Maliki government.

In Afghanistan the insurgents are the Taliban, and actually Karzai has been in favor of negotiating with them for a long time. A deal could be struck whereby there is peace with withdrawal of our troops in return for the Taliban severing ties to al Qaeda.

We would have to maintain a certain presence in the area of course to provide intelligence etc so as to continue to target al Qaeda in Pakistan and in Afghanistan if it returned there.

Currently al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan but seems to have spread everywhere else. Thus we are using such counterterrorism strategies all over the world: Somalia, Yemen, even our own country.

The families of those who die for nothing during this period of contemplation by the topless quivering tower of indecision prior to a retreat and defeat should be given extra carbon credits . We do not have a President interested in defeating our enemy , . The rats have admitted the emphasis on Afghanistan as the good war was a cynical campaign ploy to attack Bush while not looking weak on defense . Do your own birddogging rats , you know it is there . None of your phony gimme a site or it is not so BS .You read it too . I knew you would whine .

Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides when they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.

Sending more troops to die in the meatgrinder is not the solution. The solution is to empower Karzai to negotiate a peace with the Taliban which keeps al Qaeda out. This can be done, just as with the Sunni insurgents. People are basically nationalistic which is why they fight against foreign occupiers. We agreed to leave Iraq, and we should agree to leave Afghanistan. The point here is to be fighting al Qaeda not the Taliban in Afghanistan or Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Mali, etc. They intercommunicate on the internet.

Our occupation of Afghanistan is doing more harm than good and in fact inspires anti-American terrorism. For instance, recently convicted terrorist Abdulla Ahmed Ali explained in his martyrdom video that he aimed to blow up US-bound passenger jets in revenge for our troops in Muslim lands. He said, "Enough is enough." "We have warned you so many times to get out of our land and leave us alone. You have persisted in trying to humiliate, kill, and destroy us." "Yes, taste that which you have made us taste for a long time."

Afghan President Karzai has stated that he wants us to stop the air attacks which kill civilians, and he wants to make peace with the Taliban. In a March 2009 PBS interview, Karzai said that "the Taliban are not enemies of Afghanistan or of the Afghan people. They are just countryside folks...Afghans." One must remember that it was not the Taliban who hit us on 9/11. In fact the Taliban condemned the 9/11 attacks and, as reported on BBC and others (9/13/01), the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden if the US provided clear and substantial evidence of his involvement. It is noteworthy that the Taliban had been working successfully with the UN to ban opium poppy cultivation. In 1999, Afghanistan produced 4,000 tons of opium, 75% of the world's supply. Then Mulla Mohammed Omar, the Taliban supreme leader banned opium poppies, calling it un-Islamic, and jailing farmers until they agreed to destroy their crops. Farmers switched to other crops like wheat and onions, and in 2001 Afghanistan's opium crop was down to 185 tons.

Unfortunately, we ignored the Taliban offer to help us capture bin Laden, and we invaded instead. Now Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, and bin Laden is still free. President Obama says our mission in Afghanistan is to go after Al Qaeda, but Al Qaeda is now in Pakistan where our troops are not allowed. Furthermore, Al Qaeda has spread around the globe to places like Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Mali, Mauritania, etc. We can't occupy the whole world. Addressing legitimate grievances of the Muslim world by ending our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and ending Israel's occupations is a far better way to combat terrorism.

How many military men and women will die while obama tries to figure out what makes him look best?

how many troops died before the end of 2006 when we put the sunni insurgents on the US payroll in order to keep them from planting IED's and killing shiia muslims? that was the sunni awakening petraeus testified too long before the surge.

from 2003 on, many in congress were calling for more troops in iraq and were ignored by bush cheney & rummy...

Reuters Sunday, November 23, 2003; 11:56 AM

By Lori Santos

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More U.S. troops are needed in Iraq now to put down an escalating insurgency, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Sunday.

Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said if more counter-insurgency and special operations forces were deployed, U.S. troops would be able to withdraw from the embattled country more quickly.

"There's a direct relationship, us going in now and doing more so that we can get out earlier," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

"I understand it's incredibly difficult for the president to go to the American people and say we're going to put more troops in near term," Biden said. "...(But) there is not enough force or the right type of force there at this moment to quell the insurgency." the insurgency that was being denied of existance by bushco.

John McCain's real war record | Salon News

Jan 17, 2008 ... McCain told NPR on Aug. 29, 2003, that "we need more troops" in Iraq. "When I say more troops, we need a lot more of certain skills, ...

CNN.com - Hagel: Iraq growing more like Vietnam - Aug 18, 2005

Aug 18, 2005 ... Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday said the United States is "getting ... troops have died in the war since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, ... the United States would begin "withdrawing troops from Iraq next year. ...

On Guantanamo, Gates said on ABC that he’d been a supporter of establishing a deadline for closing the prison since the transition, “because I know enough from being around this town that if you don't put a deadline on something, you'll never move the bureaucracy.”

Obie has set a deadline...then missed it. Now he wants to kick the can up until January '10. What Obama is saying in effect is this is harder than I thought because nobody wants them. Gee...maybe he should have asked Bush about that instead of denigrating his every move and plan. Obama's apparent inability to close Gitmo is now a big stain on him, bigger perhaps than the stain the left smeared on Bush & Co. So far Obama's entire foreign policy has gone off the tracks and especially his lack of integrrity and mettle that is being shown in A-stan, he has provided us with nothing that has actually worked and is well on his way of losing his majoriity ala clinton '94. Those that refuse to lean from the past are doomed to repeat it! Blaming Bush now has become a hollow argument and passe` and no longer works but instead only serves to now weaken his position.

In a 9/14/09 audiotape, Osama bin Laden addressed the American people, saying once again that "the cause of the quarrel with you is your support of your Israeli allies who have occupied our land, Palestine." He declared that not only Muslims but also Americans suffer because of the US Israel Lobby. He described the Palestinians under siege in Gaza who were pounded with US-made incendiary phosphorus bombs, and he called on the American people to achieve peace and security by freeing ourselves from the Israel Lobby neocons who dictate our foreign policy.

Certainly no one deserves to live under foreign occupation. President Obama has said that we are in Afghanistan to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda. However, al Qaeda has now spread around the world, and we manage to successfully kill al Qaeda leaders in various countries without US military occupation. For instance, just this week US Special Operations and attack helicopters killed a most-wanted al Qaeda ringleader in Somalia, (The New York Times 9/15/09), and a US missile-armed drone killed an al Qaeda commander in Pakistan (The New York Times 9/18/09).

Although it is said that we are in Afghanistan to prevent the establishment of an al Qaeda haven, former CIA counterterrorism chief Paul Pillar wrote in a Washington Post op-ed (9/16/09) that the notion that terrorists require such a haven is unproven: "The preparations most important to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks took place not in training camps in Afghanistan but, rather, in apartments in Germany, hotel rooms in Spain and flight schools in the United States."

Clearly preventing al Qaeda recruitment is very important, and there is no question that, just as in Palestine, our occupation of Afghanistan, with our civilian bombings, etc, fuels anti-Americanism. Even massive aid hand-outs does not necessarily win hearts and minds, as pointed out by Andrew Wilder, a Tufts University research director in a Boston Globe op-ed 9/16/09. Our aid often fuels massive corruption, and the Taliban's promises of better security, justice, and less corruption are more important to the people than new roads.

This is no doubt one reason Afghanistan president Karzai wants to negotiate a peace with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The US government opposes this and in fact appears to oppose Karzai who has called for an end to our civilian bombings, a timeline for our withdrawal, etc. In fact, American UN official Peter Galbraith was recently criticized by his UN boss, Norwegian Kai Eide, who correctly said that it isn't the UN's role to appear to be taking sides in the election. (See The Wall Street Journal 9/16/09) (Peter Galbraith incidentally has been a longtime outspoken proponent of Kurdish autonomy/independence.)

Dragging out the political election turmoil makes peace talks less likely and prolongs our occuption indefinitely. As noted in The Christian Science Monitor 9/13/09, it costs 50% more to keep a soldier in Afghanistan, with its rugged mountainous terrain, than in Iraq. However, Israel Lobby neocons are pushing for more US troops in Afghanistan, just as they pushed for war with Iraq. For instance, Israel Lobby neocon William Kristol, son of the late neocon godfather Irving Kristol, founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) which sent the notorious 1998 letter to President Clinton calling for a "willingness to undertake military action" to remove Saddam Hussein. PNAC faded away after the Iraq debacle but appears to have resurfaced. William Kristol has now helped found a new organization, The Foreign Policy Initiative, which has just sent a letter to President Obama calling for a bigger military footprint in Afghanistan. It was signed by many of the same people who signed the 1998 PNAC letter. (See The Wall Street Journal 9/16/09).

The Israel Lobby neocons want an indefinite US military presence in Afghanistan to serve as a base from which to attack Iran, Pakistan, and all of Israel's many enemies who object to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. And thus the Jewish settlements increase along with al Qaeda recruitment.

we've dumped enough money and lives in afghanistan and in NO WAY would i support paying off taliban insurgents there as we did in iraq. in NO WAY would i support another massive nation building effort, like iraq, only to have it continually sabotaged- like iraq. after more than SIX YEARS of nation building in iraq, today they still don't have electricity 24/7/365; today they still don't have adquate potable water and sewage treatment facilities- E N O U G H! with the insanity experiments.

just a couple weeks back, 9/15, US special forces went in from ships and took out al queda elements operating in somalia; Special Forces Raid in Somalia Killed Terrorist With Al-Qaeda ... these sorts of operations are what we should do in afghanistan and pakistan with RPVs and specail forces and is what RAND recommended over a year ago; http://www.rand.org/news/press...

I am one of the last progressives who supports the war, although I refuse to be associated with the Republicans on this--I can't stand them in any way. I support the war as long as it is not fought in a conventional fashion, but relies more on Afghans at the local and regional level, including policies of social and economic development.

I know that Obama cannot count on Republican support for the war, since they will simply stab him in the back whenever it's politically expedient for them, no matter what he does or doesn't do. Naturally is own party is already against teh war and wants to deal with all our domestic problems, which are considerable and have been badly neglected in the Second Gilded Age of the last 30 years--ever since Reagan was elected.

I share those concerns, and I know that domestically a lot of things in this country have just been left to rot in the Age of Reagan, who in his way was almost as bad a president as Bush Junior.

That said, I know we cannot simply leave failed states like Afghanistan to be taken over by drug dealers, terrorists and gangsters. That is not in our interest, but neither should we get bogged down in a long, drawn out conventional war like Vietnam, which the public is not going to support.

Even worse, when Americans are being killed, the media will pay a lot more attention. That's just the way it is, and more Americans WILL be killed the larger an army we put into Afghanistan. If no Americans die, the public will not really pay much attention, especially if the victims have a different color, language and religion. Those lives simply aren't as valuable to Mr. and Mrs. America, and never have been, but they notice more when Americans die, and the media will always paint the most negative and sensationalistic picture possible, just to attract an audience. It's like a PT Barnum Circus in that respect.

All in all, the politics of war and public opinion are all negative for Obama. That doesn't mean that the majority is right, for often in US history it is wrong, but any politician (or general) has to take the big, dumb beat of public opinion into account when formulating a strategy.

Currently al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan but seems to have spread everywhere else. Thus we are using such counterterrorism strategies all over the world: Somalia, Yemen, even our own country.

Correct, we have been doing this all over since 9-11, in many countries the public knows nothing about, working with the locals wherever possible, as we should always be doing in Afghanistan.

In most of the fight against Al Qaeda, we have been following a very low key, low casualty, low publicity strategy--a low-intensity war that doesn't get noticed very much, which is fine with us. It's not the type of war that can be won with a shotgun approach, and it's not going to be over next Tuesday or next year.